The elections are over. The parliamentary elections kept in the center of public discourse by not only the last 13 years’ ruling party but also the system opposition for months and presented as the solution for all of the country’s problems, are over.

The first stage of this process on June 7, despite the illusion created by the system parties on the opposition, the winners were not the people. Now, after November 1 elections, the losers are not the people. The people do not win nor lose in the ballot box. The one that will determine whether the AKP (the ruling Justice and Development Party) will be “winner” of November 1 elections or not is again the people.

The people do not win with a vote on which it laid all its power and hope. The people win with determination, intelligence, struggle and organization.
The people do not lose with the results from the ballot box. The people lose when they approve being unprincipled, fall for lies, rely on easy solutions and succumb to tyranny and then they are no longer the people.

We cannot determine where Turkey is going to by just looking at the November 1 elections and vote percentages. There surely is a difference between the ones resisting injustice and the ones condoning it. Which of these predominates surely is important.
History, however, records the people who resist not the ones condoning. And history itself is written by the people who resist and do not succumb.

The one who appears to be the winner of the November 1 elections is the AKP.
However, it had also won in the 2010-2011 conjuncture. It imposed the constitutional amendment which was critical for its own interests and came out victorious in the 2011 election.
Then, high school students, women, university students and most importantly the resisting people of June 2013 took the stage. AKP was defeated by the struggling people.
In 2009, the winner of the local elections was AKP. But it was also the one trembling and losing when facing the TEKEL workers in 2010.
In April 2011, high school students protesting on the streets after the YGS scandal that shattered the illusions of referendum victory and the advanced democracy lies. It was AKP that was defeated.
In June 2011 elections, the proud and victorious one was again AKP.
In June 2013, it was AKP preparing to leave the scene facing the widespread popular uprising.
Now, in November 2015, AKP, which was supposedly defeated 4 months ago, is again in power after having received half of the votes.
Did it win? Will it lose?
The people will answer these questions.

On the surface, it looks like the system opposition were the losers of the November 1 elections. However, all parties on this front actually got exactly what they “aimed for”. Votes for MHP (Nationalist Movement Party; nationalistic-fascist party) decreased but MHP does not seem to have lost at all. This is because the MHP administration wanted its supporters to come to terms with AKP’s Turkey. In this respect, it cannot be said that they were unsuccessful.
CHP (Republican Peoples’ Party; the social democrat party) votes did not increase but the CHP administration is quite relieved: They achieved what they wanted. They were already striving to form a coalition with AKP; they wanted to make peace with the AKP’s Turkey. In this respect, they cannot be regarded as unsuccessful at all.
As for HDP (a new social democrat party led by the Kurdish national movement), it lost some votes in the past 4-5 months. However, a political movement which has engaged with AKP for making democratization plans since 2002 and which at times defended and protected AKP for the sake of those democratization plans should not be considered “unsuccessful” because that same AKP raised its votes to 50 percent!
For all these reasons, the system opposition does not seem to have lost November 1 elections.

By accepting the dubious results of the November 1 elections without challenging those results at all, the system opposition parties proved that they were not an alternative to AKP.
The system parties respecting the election results also showed that they do not respect the millions who expected them to stand up against AKP. That is to say they are not uncomfortable with a scene in which the AKP has a quorum to form a government but cannot amend the constitution on its own, the CHP neither progresses nor regresses, the HDP passes the threshold getting its excesses in June curtailed and becomes the key party for constitutional amendment, and the MHP transfuses some blood from its supporters to the ruling party.

Ones that insist on going after vain hopes, easy solutions, and unprincipled policies created by the system parties will be the true losers of these elections. However, it is not as easy as it used to be, especially for the parties on the system’s left to keep fooling the people.

Big capitalists who are the real owners of this system also seem to be satisfied with the scene that emerged after November 1 elections. The group within those bosses who were uncomfortable with Erdogan immediately changed their position, replacing their previous plan to neutralize Erdogan by a grand coalition with the plan to give AKP a new identity while balancing Erdogan’s excesses.
It looks like this is also the reason behind the recent praises for Davutoglu (prime minister) in the national and foreign press. They hope that AKP will be reset back to its factory settings, acting as in the first years of its rule, and they warn Erdogan: Do not dare to depend on the 50 percent!

The USA, the EU, big monopolies and the system opposition consent to an AKP that will go back to its factory settings. As far as the liberals go, those betrayers, the so-called leftists who are reactionary at heart, those who have worked as tools of AKP for deceiving the people and blessed AKP for years as a democratization project, they are looking forward to an era similar to AKP’s first years. CHP and HDP have done their part in the process of turning AKP back to its initial “lovey-dovey” days. Their “respect for the election results” is also due to this.

What are the factory settings of AKP? Can it be said that AKP was a reasonable, acceptable party that ever respected rights and freedoms?
Factory settings of the AKP are factories and establishments to be plundered.
Factory settings of the AKP are the handing of public resources to the bosses and increase in social inequality.
Factory settings of the AKP is reactionism going on attack.
Factory settings of the AKP is absolute cooperation with strong imperialist centers.
In the factory settings of the AKP, there is nothing that benefits the working people.

The energy of the people who stood up against the AKP since 2010 and was about to abolish its sultanate has been gradually destroyed by the system opposition’s ballot calculations, fake solution proposals, and by plays staged in the parliament which has no function left other than holding up the people. And now, a large mass in panic expects AKP to get rid of its extremism.

AKP cannot get rid of its extremism. Because the big monopolies represented by AKP have to keep strangling the people in order to maintain their profits. Because the religious reactionism instantiated with AKP has no limits.
And because the Turkey of AKP’s dreams is one that is impossible to stabilize.

The capitalist class which always lives on the edge, facing dangers, continues its existence with the fear of workers suddenly revolting one day or the fear of the regional balances to change overnight, the fear of their imperialist bosses to suddenly discard them one day and of a sudden global crisis to erupt.
By its very nature, this capitalist class worships stability and prioritizes stability over everything else.
The phenomenon that is perceivable but that cannot simply be ignored as “normal” is the fact that the capitalist class has contaminated the working people with this mania for stability.
Our working class, who are being tamed by fears such as the fear of unemployment or a potential financial crisis, the fear of losing all their savings due to devaluation, the fear of earthquakes, homelessness and the fear of police, can sacrifice their futures for the sake of “stability”.
In fact, for the workers, the “stability” obsession itself is exactly the thing that does not give them a moment of peace.
Working in a job which can be lost at any time, living with the fear of becoming miserable with the whole family, getting suddenly evicted from the rental property they live paying exorbitant prices… These are elements of the horror tunnel which has attained an ordinary place in lives of our working people.
The “stability” obsession lengthens this horror tunnel rather than seeing light at the end of it.

For a safe and secure future, it is necessary to struggle without falling for the promises of stability.
The main condition to struggle against AKP, and the exploitation and degeneration that it represents is to subdue AKP as a ruling party and to rupture with the parties that reconcile with it.

It is not a predestined outcome for AKP to win and AKP’s most crucial weak point is to be found in its own foundations, in the dynamics which created it.
AKP represents the system of exploitation and weaknesses of this system are also AKP’s weaknesses.

An opposition that does not question the NATO, that attempts to make Said-i Nursi (an important religious figure known for his pro ASmerican, anti-communist stands) its flag and competes with AKP on topics that are the raisons d’être of that party, an opposition with all its political activity accompanying AKP on topics used by AKP to legitimize itself, will only end up breathing new life to AKP.

The votes received by our Party in November 1 elections and more importantly, the political and organizational moves that the Party executed in recent months point to a “way out” that is completely outside this dark picture.

As is known, the Communist Party increased its votes by more than a fivefold within a four-month period.

The Communist Party increased its votes at varying degrees in all electoral districts. The most important point in our view is the tendencies corresponding to the disengagement of poor workers from the system and the mainstream system opposition. The increase in votes received from working class neighborhoods in Istanbul and Ankara is a concrete indicator of this.
As also evidenced by the increase of votes in other cities, the conclusion that can be drawn is that the poor workers understood the messages of the Communist Party and responded to its call. Each concrete example in this regard is not only important because it gives the Party a better idea of the sectors of the working class that responded to the Party’s call but also because it assigns new responsibilities and tasks for the Party.
In the upcoming days or even hours, the Communist Party will intensify its work for to reach out to the people who voted for the Party and to organize them.

The votes received on November 1 are about the same as the number of votes received by the Communist Party of Turkey in the 2011 elections, especially in the cities in Anatolia. It is clear that tens of thousands who used to vote for the Communist Party of Turkey and stood with it are out of the vacillation they experience in June and chose to vote once again for Turkey’s Communist Party, overcoming their very understandable but temporary resentment for the Party.

The increase in the number of the people who sided with the Communist Party, reached out to and embraced the Party, especially in the cities where reactionism looms over like a nightmare, is also remarkable.
People who see no hope in the mainstream system parties seeking for reconciliation with reactionism are meeting with the Communist Party.

We said not only in November but also in June: What is important in the elections which have a special meaning as part of the mechanisms of ruling and domination by the capital is the number of people standing up against the system, refusing to succumb to it. This number is not just an “election result” but points to the social base for an organized movement that exists body and soul.
It must be well-known that the Communist Party these new voters not because it made great advances in the last five months but because it remained loyal to a conscious and persistent line of struggle from the very beginning.

Our call to everyone who voted for the Communist Party, irrespective of their roots and political background, is to organize. The Communist Party will gain new members and with them will get the downtrodden workers of our country to stand up. As we said the day before the election: The rest is a lie…